3 ms·

Probably was cheap to add and there's some commercial market they're aiming at. I've been down the NUC road, and sort of like these kinds of products, but thin

Probably was cheap to add and there's some commercial market they're aiming at. I've been down the NUC road, and sort of like these kinds of products, but think they're a hard sell. A person could spend $50-$150 (instead of $500 all-in) on eBay and get an ex-corporate small desktop or a Thinkpad, spend a bit more and get a new Mac Mini M1, or view it as a down payment on a decent laptop or desktop. That Brix looks like it's in the middle of a pretty big ecosystem of products. There's more than a few people that might as well just own a Chromebox. If Raspberry PI 4s were just a bit faster, the non-performance home hobbyists might as well go for those as desktops and stick with computers that are cheaper than 2-3 new hardbound books.

bartvk 5y ago
These are much smaller than an ex-corporate small desktop, right? My Intel NUC can easily be mounted behind my monitor. And although this Gigabyte product may be more expensive, the NUC its price range starts around 150 for Celeron based models a.l the way up to Mac Mini levels.
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  Those corporate boxes go pretty small. https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M93-i7-4765T-Win10Pro/dp/B08B21GSCK https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M93-i7-4765T-Win10... To me NUCs have sort of the same problem as their brethren in this space, you end up with too much money into them. In terms of cheap desktops, I've settled into older Thinkpads for now. Tolerably quiet (although I do consider fanless desktops now and again), cheap, they appear to be the kings of OS compatibility, as fixable as a laptop can be, built-in battery backup for the shitty power we have 'round these parts. At some point I'll have to modernize, but find it hard to spend much on computers. That's what employers/clients are for.
otabdeveloper4 5y ago
The cheaper NUC computers are a good alternative to the Raspberry PI. The Raspberry seems cheaper on paper, but you have to add a case, power supply, some sort of storage solution and then suffer with the whole thing not quite working properly.
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  NUCs are more powerful, use more power and still cost more. A 5v 3A power supply is only $6.50 USD on amazon. A tiny SD card and case don't cost much either. Even with 8GB of memory you still come in way under the cost of NUC. Don't forget that there are cheap barebones NUCs that don't have drives in them either. "The whole thing not quite working properly" is nonsense.
  - otabdeveloper4 5y ago
    Well, I don't want to build a computer from a bundle of mismatched parts I found by searching for the cheapest seller on Amazon. This wasn't even fun 20 years ago when PC hardware was more-or-less standardized and commoditized, and it's way less fun today with proprietary SoC's.
    - CyberDildonics 5y ago
      Raspberry Pis are one part. You take it out of the box and put a memory card in. Have you ever put one together? There is no mismatching. You can buy the official power supply or an unofficial one, but 5v with 3a is not exactly IRQ configuration. Have you ever used a NUC? Thermals are a big concern. They usually throttle heavily out of the box and need a lot of configuration in the bios to stop Intel's "turbo boost" as well as get them to throttle at a higher temperature. Even then they will usually run much better with their case off. I think both are cool devices, but the things you are saying about the pi are bizarre and makes me think you haven't actually put one together.

bartvk 5y ago

These are much smaller than an ex-corporate small desktop, right? My Intel NUC can easily be mounted behind my monitor. And although this Gigabyte product may be more expensive, the NUC its price range starts around 150 for Celeron based models a.l the way up to Mac Mini levels.

kingsuper20 5y ago
Those corporate boxes go pretty small. https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M93-i7-4765T-Win10Pro/dp/B08B21GSCK https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkCentre-M93-i7-4765T-Win10... To me NUCs have sort of the same problem as their brethren in this space, you end up with too much money into them. In terms of cheap desktops, I've settled into older Thinkpads for now. Tolerably quiet (although I do consider fanless desktops now and again), cheap, they appear to be the kings of OS compatibility, as fixable as a laptop can be, built-in battery backup for the shitty power we have 'round these parts. At some point I'll have to modernize, but find it hard to spend much on computers. That's what employers/clients are for.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago

The cheaper NUC computers are a good alternative to the Raspberry PI. The Raspberry seems cheaper on paper, but you have to add a case, power supply, some sort of storage solution and then suffer with the whole thing not quite working properly.

CyberDildonics 5y ago
NUCs are more powerful, use more power and still cost more. A 5v 3A power supply is only $6.50 USD on amazon. A tiny SD card and case don't cost much either. Even with 8GB of memory you still come in way under the cost of NUC. Don't forget that there are cheap barebones NUCs that don't have drives in them either. "The whole thing not quite working properly" is nonsense.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  Well, I don't want to build a computer from a bundle of mismatched parts I found by searching for the cheapest seller on Amazon. This wasn't even fun 20 years ago when PC hardware was more-or-less standardized and commoditized, and it's way less fun today with proprietary SoC's.
  - CyberDildonics 5y ago
    Raspberry Pis are one part. You take it out of the box and put a memory card in. Have you ever put one together? There is no mismatching. You can buy the official power supply or an unofficial one, but 5v with 3a is not exactly IRQ configuration. Have you ever used a NUC? Thermals are a big concern. They usually throttle heavily out of the box and need a lot of configuration in the bios to stop Intel's "turbo boost" as well as get them to throttle at a higher temperature. Even then they will usually run much better with their case off. I think both are cool devices, but the things you are saying about the pi are bizarre and makes me think you haven't actually put one together.